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Eric Nuttall , Portfolio Manager

Sprott Assett Management

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Energy. It feels like we are pretty close to a time of maximum despair in energy stocks. They’re under owned and people just don’t want to touch them. There have been many false starts this year, but this week is the first time in a very long time where things are starting to feel better. Not only do we have the combination of a few different agencies asserting their bullish thesis on oil that the market is tightening, but OECD surplus inventories have fallen by about 44%. We’ve had cuts in US growth rates and evidence of plateauing in US production in the past 5 months. This is an area that is massively undervalued, stocks are trading at half of their historical multiples and good fundamentals that are now improving, and there are now people starting to recognize that.

He really likes this company. More of a manufacturing company than an oil/gas company. They should be generating gobs of free cash flow. The challenge in Canada is that there are ongoing issues around pipeline availability and egress take away solutions, and we have seen that manifest itself in the past quarter.

(A Top Pick Aug 30/16. Down 33%.) Did a great job of acquiring an asset out of Encana last year. Because of infrastructure, they were able to go in and steal the asset. The CEO doesn’t get as much credit as he should.

This has always been tricky, because it is fairly closely held, and trading liquidity is pretty crummy. It is typically Canadian dividend funds that buy it and hold it. They found themselves in a position where they had taken on too much debt, and made a mistake of not hedging it off. Have high quality assets. Due to its lack of liquidity, he has been trading at a pretty healthy premium to others.

He would avoid this. They will really shine in a higher commodity price, because they will be able to generate cash flow above and beyond their interest payment, to deploy into the ground and grow. Trading at a premium multiple, 6.6X versus the average of 6.2 of the intermediates in Canada.

The list of investables in Canada is not a super long one. Their use of financial leverage taints the name for very, very long time. If you are bullish on gas, he could list off 5 names that you would want to buy ahead of this. Not a name he would own.

If looking to clip a dividend coupon, the estimate is that it is sustainable down to about $45 oil. The dividend yield is high, because the stock’s been slaughtered on an overhang. The overhang was because RBC determined there was enough demand to do a fairly significant bought deal at $5.50, for them to buy an asset off of Husky. RBC had overestimated the market’s demand for Canadian small caps. It is back to a level now where it is extraordinarily cheap. He struggles trying to figure out where the big guys want to come in and bid it up. They’ve had too many stumbling blocks in order for you to get super excited. Dividend yield of 9.74%.

There’s too much history amongst retail and institutional investors to want to embrace this name for the foreseeable future. Some people may have an issue with overall executive compensation relative to shareholder performance over the past 5 years.

The amount of debt is a concern, which is why they’re disposing of assets. Even with that leverage relative to its peers, free cash flow is lower. They don’t know who the next CEO is going to be. There is no reason to own this.

The most financially leveraged fracing company. The whipping boy if you are bearish on oil, fuel activity and sand. This is the one you would Short. The Short interest is back up to about 32% of the float. As you are seeing money come back into the market, we should step back. The backdrop is, we’ve had a good week this week. He is waiting to see if Long money comes into the market. He is bullish for frac sand, but this is not his favourite, because of the financial leverage.

(A Top Pick Aug 30/16. Down 9%.) Hotels that railway employees used to use. They’ve been expanding in the past couple of years into branded hotels, which have been doing fairly well up until the last quarter, where they have been renovating a larger than normal number of rooms. This has a 9% yield.

If you believe in significantly higher oil prices, this stock will go up several fold. If not, they are kind of stuck in the mud. They have excess financial leverage and got caught off side by the selloff in oil. There is not a lot they can do to get themselves out of this, other than a material increase in the price of oil. There are better opportunities elsewhere.

(A Top Pick Aug 30/16. Down 39%.) An example of a management team that does a big acquisition with very lofty goals of revenue and margin growth. Execution became a little more difficult than they thought and they disappointed the street, so the stock got hammered. They’ve had 3 quarters of not meeting expectations. At this point, it is a “show me” story.

Typically, a higher beta US name. In the US, if you want beta without going to crazy, you typically buy this one. Tends to be higher volatility than others. They’re spinning out some of their midstream assets to pay down some of the debt. Using more sand and getting very strong incremental economics on their wells. It should be a benefactor of some money coming out of some of the Permian. If the stock traded off, he would consider owning some.

A merger between Precision Drilling (PD-T) and Trinidad (TDG-T)? Thinks you can make the thesis to own either one with a preference to pressure pumping, without necessarily making the bet that you are going to see M&A. The biggest argument is personalities.

6 Comments

petersirie

December 17th 2012 at 6:46pm

Keep up the quality commentary please. I have really appreciated your insight.

boblewellyn@yah

March 16th 2013 at 7:50pm

There is a report that Petrobakken has started a gas injection program that has substantially increased their production and reserves. Stock closed at $9.50 on Friday, March 15, 2013, probably because of this report.

car2nz

April 10th 2014 at 3:12pm

When Eric says BUY...You should be SELLING ...When he says Sell...You should be BUYING. He is consistently WRONG! It's amazing!

BeauRegard

April 21st 2014 at 3:36pm

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer!

CH-Investments

April 26th 2014 at 10:04am

Not a fan of all his picks but some of them have great potential to generate a large profit. Have found a number of decent picks here and have done my own analysis which has made me operate at a decent profit.

3clicks

June 1st 2016 at 9:35am

I like Eric for his overall market commentaries. But gotta be cautious with his picks although BTE was a great advice.

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